Radio Sandwell News

Sex assault GP jailed for six years

A GP who sexually assaulted and took intimate pictures of women and child patients has been jailed for six years.

Barend Delport took more than 800 photos of patients at his surgery in Swanley in Kent over a 10-year period.

Delport, 55, of Tunbridge Wells, said he was photographing them for training purposes or to show medical students.

He admitted 26 offences at Maidstone Crown Court including sexual assault and making, taking and possessing indecent images of children.

Delport admitted two further charges of indecent assault earlier after another victim came forward.

His victims ranged in age from 18 months to a woman in her 60s, the court heard.

'Totally abused'

He was arrested after the mother of a girl made a complaint to police in May last year following a visit to the surgery.

Prosecutor Anthony Haycroft said Delport claimed to be a dermatologist when taking intimate pictures of a child suffering from a skin complaint.

He also referred to another child as "his little girlfriend" and intimately photographed a woman who had gone to him with a stomach complaint.

The defendant, who lived in Eynsford Rise in Eynsford at the time of his arrest, was found to have 500,000 images on his computer, more than 5,500 of them pornographic, Mr Haycroft said.

Some 842 were pictures of patients that Delport had taken himself.

The incidents happened at the Oaks Surgery in Swanley

Delport, of Summervale Road in Tunbridge Wells, also took photographs of women telling them he was building a case against the midwives at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford who he falsely claimed were failing to care for patients properly, Mr Haycroft said.

The court was told a lot of the patients allowed themselves to be photographed because they trusted Delport as their doctor.

Photographic consent forms, in which patients had agreed to being photographed during their examinations, were seized by police.

Senior health professionals consulted about the images agreed they served no clinical purpose.

"The mothers of the child victims all feel totally and understandably abused," Mr Haycroft said.

We have a very fine health service, the envy of the world and it's based on trust and on respect"

Judge Philip Statman

"They have feelings of guilt and they have lost trust in doctors completely."

Michael Haynes, defending, said Delport's shame at what he had done was "overwhelming" and he had let down his wife, friends and patients.

Mr Haynes said since his arrest Delport, who has separated from his wife, had sought treatment for his "addiction to pornography".

Judge Philip Statman said it was difficult to imagine "a graver breach of trust than had occurred in this case".

"We have a very fine health service, the envy of the world and it's based on trust and on respect," he said.

"What you did, for entirely spurious reasons, was to use your position as a trusted GP to touch and photograph your victims, giving - amongst others - as a reason, a desire to help with clinical further education, to report allegations of bad practice at a particular hospital and to lecture with, or to show specialists on referral.